Little Bronze Things: What They Do and How They Do It in the Early Bronze Age in NW China

Summary

Small bronze objects, some tools, others ornaments, and yet others of undetermined function, are the earliest known Bronze objects in China. Many of these objects are found in sites from Northwest China that date to the early part of the second millennium BC. Their manufacture seems to have been conducted locally on a small scale in this region, and yet the transformation of matter that their production entailed played a role in large scale transformations of society – ultimately culminating in the massive production of metal later in the same millennium by the expansive, highly centralized, literate state of the Shang. What did these little bronze things do in the Qijia and other cultural contexts in which they are found during this early stage? Did they play a role in transformations of political power? Or did they remain rather ineffective in the political realm until later manifestations of metallurgy emerged? How do the roles of these things relate to similar objects in imperial contexts?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20177